The present invention relates to a diagnostic system for a vehicle, and more specifically to a system for storing diagnostic information.
Complicated vehicle control systems increase the need for onboard diagnostics (self diagnosis) for diagnosing faults and malfunctions in the systems.
Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 61-169332 shows a conventional diagnostic system for an automatic transmission.
In some conventional examples, diagnostic information is lost when the driver turns off the ignition switch. The diagnostic system of the above-mentioned Japanese document employs a nonvolatile memory for saving information on detected faults. However, this system is not arranged to use the nonvolatile memory effectively in consideration of the characteristics of the memory.